Shaded Realities
by Adyen
Summary: With their innocence and belief of immortality shattered, Akane and Ranma seek to find out more about themselves. But the road to their goals are shrouded in darkness can they find themselves before they too, are devoured in their own darkness? Dead


Ranma said his goodnights to Akane as he hung upside down from outside her window. It was late at night, and he made sure that everyone was asleep before starting his daily talk with Akane.  
  
This started soon after the wedding disaster, where they both realized the need to talk and communicate, not just guess what their responses would be. They wouldn't be able to talk at school or anywhere public, so each night, Ranma would bring Akane to the top of the dojo, where he was sure Nabiki did not have any listening devices.  
  
They'd spend an hour sitting under the stars (when the lights were dim enough to see them) or inside the dojo doing a small bit of practice (mainly having Akane try to hit him with his eyes closed, which is surprisingly good practice for both of them). When they were not practicing, they talked about what happened that day, even if they were together at the time. There were arguments, but they weren't as heated as they were once.  
  
The children have realized their own mortality, and now tries to live as much as they can.  
  
It was on that night, a moonless night where the stars were blotted out by the light pollution that something caught Ranma's attention; a light were there shouldn't be, and a light that couldn't come from anything within the room.  
  
Quickly, he crept along the roof of the Tendo building until he was over the room he saw the light coming from, and slowly lowered his head to take a better look inside. What he saw scared him like nothing else since the possible death of Akane.  
  
Kasumi, the eldest daughter, was floating semi-horizontally above her bed, seeming to be still asleep. Across from her was a figure that glowed a pale light, completely hidden underneath a long black cloak, its hand reaching out towards the floating woman in a gesture that can be hostile or caring. Either way, Ranma had seen enough.  
  
Bursting though the semi-open window (as there was no air- conditioning in the Tendo house, and the Summer winds were just enough to cool a room), Ranma attempted to knock the cloaked figure away from Kasumi. However, instead of meeting the resistance he thought he would met, all he felt was a silky feeling of fabric passing around and over him, before he crashed into the door on the other side of the room.  
  
Blinking, Ranma instinctively returned into a fighting post before he noticed that the stranger's hood was retracted. What stunned him was that the face of the cloaked figure, one that was a near mirror of the one floating in front of her, except more aged and ethereal.  
  
The person, if it really was a person, noticed Ranma, but paid him no heed as she touched Kasumi on the cheeks and suddenly seemed drawn to the floating woman, the long black cloak wrapped around the two figures in a strange pattern that made the young martial artist dizzy just by looking at it.  
  
A knock on the door distracted him. "Kasumi-nee?" Akane's soft voice came from outside. "Is everything alright? I heard a noise from your room."  
  
Before she could finish the sentence, Ranma had opened the door and said, "Wake Pops up. We have a problem."  
  
Akane was about to ask what he was doing in Kasumi's room when she noticed the dark ribbons shifting and retracting into a figure that could only be her older sister. "Wha.?" She confusedly asked as she tried to make sense of what's happening, not that she had much success for the past two years.  
  
"Just go!" Ranma hissed, trying to get her to safety. He couldn't risk her life when he could risk his own. Then the idea that *he* could shout to awaken the household entered his mind, and he silently berated himself for getting into the habit of not wanting to wake everyone up in the middle of the night.  
  
Just as he took a breath and was about to yell, a voice pleaded to him. "Please wait. I can explain."  
  
Seeing Akane's eyes bulging from her sockets, Ranma turned back towards Kasumi and found the young woman dressed in something even HE wouldn't wear as a disguise.  
  
It was a complete black dress. Actually, calling it a 'dress' is overstating it. It's more like a bikini that's been given a few stripes of cloth to cover enough of it so that it can be worn anywhere. In fact, the only modest thing about the entire dress is that it had a skirt that reached Kasumi's knees, and that's only because she's sitting at the edge of her bed.  
  
"Please. I can explain what happened." What was obviously not Kasumi said that in such a Kasumi-like tone of voice and body language that Akane had nodded and was entering the room before she realized what she was doing. Struggling to control herself, Akane looked at Ranma for a moment, and realized that this was her choice, and that could or could not be her sister.  
  
Sighing, she closed the door behind her and said, "Fine. You have five minutes before I wake the entire neighborhood."  
  
The one who looked like Kasumi but wasn't dressed like Kasumi smiled and said, "Thank you." Then, a serious frown entered her look. "But this doesn't go any further than the three of us, understand?" At the consenting nods, she flicked her wrist in a odd manner and spoke a word with an odd accent.  
  
A weird ripple passed through the walls around them and Kasumi sighed. "There. Now Nabiki's recording devices will all be blanked automatically."  
  
Seeing that both Ranma and Akane was looking at her as if she's grown two heads, the woman who looked like Kasumi sighed. "This might be somewhat complicated, but I am Kasumi, but I am a Tendo only as much as you are a Saotome, Ranma." She then turned to Akane. "And the same goes with you, Akane."  
  
The shadows from her clothing shivered and suddenly expanded, covering the entire room, plunging their world into darkness. "And this, is the truth of our world."  
  
Shaded Realities  
  
A Ranma 1/2 and Original Crossover series by Adyen  
  
I've started writing again slowly, but this idea just came out of nowhere and smacked my head like a ping-pong ball. It will incorporate a few ideas I found interesting (one of the main themes will come from The Matrix, but don't worry too much about it. It's actually supposed to be introspective, so references will only go that far), as well as some ideas I've been dying to try out.  
  
I probably won't be updating for a while longer, but I appreciate all the reviews I got even after I held off my updates. I will eventually update all my stuff, but not this week. 


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